Cracker Jack
by LadyElaine
Summary: The human race is dying. What role does Jack have to play in her species' survival? [Pitch Black AU; not associated with Chronicles.]
1. Chapter 1

Title: Cracker Jack

Author: LadyElaine

Disclaimer: The characters and situations of Pitch Black belong to USA Films and David Twohy. I make no profit from this except (hopefully) feedback.

Rating: R

Summary: The human race is dying. What role does Jack have to play in her species' survival?

When people asked Jack why she kept her head shaved, she always told them it was because razors were cheaper than shampoo out here. Of course, out on the Fringes, humans were the oddities, the rarities; more sapients than not who saw Jack next to Rene just assumed they were different species.

The station cafe was crowded, but that wasn't anything new. Jack was struggling to understand a pair of Burchars, their throats expanding with the effort of speaking at a high enough pitch for her to hear, but that wasn't anything new, either. She served them what she hoped was the right meal, one eye on the flock of Kriuulu currently occupying the central table.

She'd never seen any in real life.

"Excuse me."

They were beautiful, their incandescent feathers lighting up the dingy cafe like Christmas lights in a gutter, their fluting voices carrying even over the subdued roar of station machinery.

"Miss? Hello?"

Jack snapped back to reality and almost jumped in surprise. A human-a real, living, breathing man-stood there, looking politely embarrassed. Other than Rene, she hadn't seen another human since-_Since the last time at Doc Sharp's_, she reminded herself. Almost a year.

Taking a careful step backwards, she apologized with a smile. "What can I get for you?"

The man was dressed in drab gray coveralls that matched his eyes and his thinning hair. "Uh, no, nothing-I mean, I was wondering if you could direct me to the hub offices," he stammered. "I'm afraid I'm a bit lost..."

Well, it was nearly closing time anyway. Nodding, Jack said, "Sure, if you can wait a few minutes. As soon as these folks finish up, I'll close up here and we can get going."

He hemmed and hawed for a minute, and finally asked if there was anything he could help with. "No," Jack said, shooting him a cool smile, "thanks. Why don't you have a seat?" _Weird guy_, she thought, picking up a rag to wipe down the counters.

She froze when his hand closed around her wrist. _No, no, no, no!_ "I'm sorry," she whispered, her heart sinking. "Please don't-"

"I really need you to help me to the hub," the man said. She raised her eyes from his hand to his face. There was a blister under his left eye. She watched in horrified fascination as it pulsed and, like a drop of candle wax, rolled down his cheek.

_Oh thank God, he's _not _human_, she thought with sudden relief-but hard on the heels of that thought came the realization that the situation wasn't much better now. Her hand had gone numb under his grip, and the chill was beginning to creep up her arm. She suddenly didn't think he had any interest in seeing the hub offices at all.

With a cry of alarm, she jerked out of his grasp. Feathers fluttered at the table a few feet away, and the Kriuulu stood up in shock.

Jack didn't wait to see if they meant to help her. Blundering through the storeroom, she almost ran smack into the back door. A few frantic seconds of fumbling with the lock, and she hurled herself into the outer passageway.

_Whumpf._

The whole station rocked, and Jack pulled herself back to her feet. What the hell? She turned around, and he was there, something long and glistening hanging from his lower lip.

"I just want to talk to you," he said as his skin began to bubble. A pale hand reached out again, but Jack danced out of his grasp, turned tail, and ran.

_Whumpf._

She grabbed onto the side rail for support and kept running. Somewhere behind her, fluting Kriuulu voices began to squawk in unmusical alarm as another explosion shook the station. _Clockwise round the curve, to Bay 19_, she said to herself. _That's where Rene promised he'd be... Clockwise round the curve_, she repeated over and over again, the words like a mantra blocking out the insanity of what she'd just seen.

_Whumpf._

This time when she went sprawling, hands the size of dinner plates scooped her up. "C'mon, momma, get your narrow little white ass up!" It was Rene, his warm voice somehow reassuring, even in this sudden madness.

"Rene, I don't know what happened! It touched me, and then I ran, and then there were all these booms-"

"Crackers, is what happened! The whole place is gonna go!"

The lights flickered and died, and everything went still and silent. Jack and Rene stopped.

_Shuffle-scritch. _

"Rene?"

"Ain't me, momma."

"That thing-it wasn't a cracker. And it _touched _me!"

A flare sizzled to life in Rene's hand. His skin, normally so black it was almost purple, reflected livid green. "Almost there. Safe soon," he whispered.

_Shuffle-scritch._

They turned around to find it staggering slowly down the passageway, one hand sliding along the wall for dubious support, leaving streaks of something wet behind it.

"Jhusst... 'anted... 'alk... you," it slurred.

Jack suppressed a scream, backing into the solid mass of Rene.

"Fuck, momma," he whispered. "No way. No, no, I gotta go, I gotta get my ass home and see about that coolant..."

Jack could feel him backing away from her, leaving her cold and alone, leaving her for this _thing _to have. _He was leaving her!_

She caught the edge of his shirt. "Don't-"

One of his huge, meaty hands crushed hers, twisting her arm savagely. "Let go! Crackers is bad enough, but you got a faylind on you, momma. They don't never stop, once they got a taste. And I don't want that _thing _on me." She could feel the blow coming, knew it, knew she couldn't block his fist-

Her world ended in thunder. As her mind spiraled down, she could hear frantic pulse shots zinging from Rene's pistol. Her last, absurd thought was, _Well, I was going to have to leave soon anyway..._

Just before the darkness claimed her, she felt a pair of arms wrapping around her.


	2. Chapter 2

He'd started shaving his scalp even before they put him in Slam. One day he'd woken up to his head itching, and when he went to scratch, his hair scratched back. Sharp, like wire. And then some of it was smooth and limp, oily. He'd looked in a mirror and seen his usual black hair interspersed with blonde. And red. And white. It had almost come as a relief.

When they finally caught up with him, stuck him away where no one would remember him-kept him, didn't kill him-he finagled himself a shine job. Not unusual for a convict who never expected to see the light again. But even after he'd escaped, the shine job was useful. Obscured the discoloration of his eyes. All the outside world saw was a common criminal, not a curse.

Some people hid themselves away, where they wouldn't come in contact with other humans. Or went out to the Fringes, where there weren't enough humans to worry about infecting. For a long time, Riddick hadn't cared. Let the whole human race touch him. Let the bastards see what the Wailing Wars had really been all about. Things happened Out There that no scientist could explain, or fix.

Pulse fire screamed through his memory-_For fuck's sake, don't _touch _any of 'em!_-making his eyelids twitch. Screams of the condemned, no judge or jury needed here, innocent of everything except being alive. He hadn't had much faith in the human race before the massacre. After carrying out his orders, he hadn't had any left at all.

The next wave came to kill off the killers, never suspecting that they were condemning themselves in turn.

Once Pandora's Box was open, no amount of murder was going to close it again. They thought orbital bombardment would stop the lives being wasted, but they were wrong.

A hot spark of consciousness shot endlessly through the stasis of his brain. Laughter. A party. Riddick shaking hands with as many ignorant fucks as he could manage. _Welcome to my world._ An alarm buzzing somewhere. When it got back to the politicians, when the whole Tri-System Congress suddenly and mysteriously went bald all at once, maybe this alarm would stop buzzing and he could sleep a while longer.

He opened his eyes, half expecting to wake up chained. But the clear panel before him opened at a touch, and he staggered out of his coldsleep tube and into the pilot's seat. Ship-his ship. This far out, possession was ten tenths of the law.

This far out-where the hell was he?

He slapped the alarm off. "Condition update."

CONDITION: RED. REALSPACE DRIVE DAMAGED. HULL INTEGRITY COMPROMISED. DISTRESS BEACON INOPERATIVE.

"Coordinates?"

COORDINATES: UNKNOWN.

"Reboot star chart."

UNABLE TO COMPLY.

"Run full diagnostic."

UNABLE TO COMPLY.

"Fuck!"

UNABLE TO COMPLY.

He switched on the viewscreen, but it came up black. He shut it down, switched it back on again. Still nothing. Then he looked at the sensor screen, at the impossible numbers scrolling up, giving him the specs of a ship docked at something that most definitely was not a station.

Now he knew why the screen was black, and he wondered if he should feel some kind of bitter homecoming.

The metal of the bulkhead warped and groaned, and Pierce felt herself go pale. Allis was still in the lab, still dissecting those _things_, completely oblivious to what was happening just outside his door. Somehow one of them had gotten loose. How could he have let that happen? And why wouldn't he have warned the rest of the crew? _Jackass!_ she thought savagely._ If he _did _know, if he's not dead already-he'd just want to see those things in action, and screw the rest of us._ He just wasn't the same person he'd been at that first debriefing.

The bulkhead groaned again, and a handful of rivets popped out, zinging down the corridor like crazed crickets. She could see it now, see the way the numbers on the wall twisted and danced. Whispering a shaky curse-_I'm not getting paid near enough for this!_-Pierce took aim and let off a shot toward the visibly growing distortion. The pulse bolt disappeared half a meter away from its target. She cursed again, tried to turn and run though she knew it was already too late, and then her rifle was ripped away by invisible hands, hurtling off to land with a clang on the ceiling three meters ahead. It stuck fast. So did she.

Two pairs of feathered antennae emerged from the distortion, followed by an enormous set of mandibles. Six long, armored legs scrabbled onto the floor, making the steel shriek; a clawed tail whipped itself through, and the distortion vanished with an audible _crack_.

Pierce's feet turned to ice, and she could feel her hair standing on end. She looked down to see a new distortion growing on the floor beneath her; and above her, another on the ceiling. Grasping her midsection, writhing with the effort to escape, she hurled curse after desperate curse at the monster.

Bones in her feet separated, one after another, then in her ankles. She tried to fling out her arms, and felt muscles tearing. Pieces of her skull began to crunch and grind together, and she tasted blood. Her lungs were on fire, but suddenly the fact that she couldn't breathe wasn't very important anymore.

The air swallowed her last strangled scream, and the distortions popped out of existence, leaving only a spray of red.

The cracker hesitated. All four antennae tasted the fabric of existence. Mandibles clicked and chirred, and the long, chitinous neck craned in the direction of the lab, where it knew one of its fellows lay in pieces. It followed the curve of the hallway, tiny pincers on the feet grasping and pulling it along.

When the creature was gone, the rifle clattered to the floor. A minute later, it was echoed by a metallic crash from the lab.

"Who the hell _are_ you?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Jack."

_I was going to have to leave soon anyway... _

The thought swam up out of blackness, connected to a picture of a blonde, bespectacled man smiling. Doc Sharp always smiled, especially when the needles were going in.

"Jack."

There are some areas of space that are completely Dark.

Most nebulas are stellar nurseries, lashed with the brilliant radiation of new stars. But these are different. Sensor signals come back hopelessly garbled; probes simply disappear. The lucky few explorers who ever came out of the Dark near Lyrius talked about an enormous machine, so twisted and warped that the mind couldn't quite make sense of it; and about the way even time seemed to loop around, past and future tangling in the present. No one knows what happened in places like this, though a few legends, older than the human race itself, talk about an ancient war at the dawn of time.

The Wailing Wars started in one of these places. Because those lucky few explorers were the ones who first brought out the plague.

Black dust no longer completely obscures the grotesque lines and curves. It's huge, almost bigger than the mind can take in, but there's even more of it hidden in the ashen cloud. Like an iceberg from hell, what shows is only the tip of its warped magnificence.

Metal arms twist out like frozen screams. Huge chasms, kilometers deep and impossibly long, have been gouged with random precision as though cosmic talons have ripped across the surface of the vast relic.

And then there are the seams that don't quite match up, the mismatched half-domes, the reverse craters like comets have hit from the inside out. Gigantic girders thrust clean through each other as if the very molecules have never learned that two objects cannot occupy the same space. Someone has played divine jigsaw out here, but the pieces don't fit any more.

Dully gleaming metal hills and valleys, tranquil to the eyes until shadows resolve themselves into gaping holes; and beyond this patch of insane landscape-

The ship is almost too ugly to be true, one of many that the great shipyards at Juris Prime vomit out between their graceful government liners. Used to, anyway, before everyone finally started dying.

Merc ship.

He took cell scrapings. From the mucous membranes, from the mouth, then more invasive collections. It all happened while she was asleep, of course. That was part of the deal. Doc Sharp could have bled any number of them dry while they hibernated-but if his patients had started disappearing, a piece at a time, his clientele would have evaporated. He wasn't legal, but he did his job.

But still, sometimes it did feel like she was disappearing, a piece at a time.

"Jack, can you hear me?"

The world had fractured. All the king's horses and all the king's men had shattered into infinity.

He's a skinny man, starched gray coveralls, thinning gray hair. Around him in the merc ship's lab stand tables full of-something. If someone decided to mix biologicals with machinery, the result might look like this. Half mechanics shop, half operating room. Riveted to the walls of the laboratory are two xeno-containment tanks. Both doors have been opened. Both tanks are empty.

The man sits at one of these tables, a strange tool in his hand. He is not dissecting. He touches part of the cracker's thorax, twists the tool, and one of six disarticulated legs several meters away twitches.

"Working now?" he asks, and an antennae on another table sends a pulse of assent through the air.

The tool shifts, twists again, and a second leg moves, dislodging a bit of cracked shell. It falls to the floor with a metallic crash.

"Who the hell _are_ you?"

The man looks up briefly-"No one in particular."-and goes back to his work.

A noise from the hatch on the other side of the room. It seems strange that this many body-machine-parts, spread out over a lab almost as large as the cargo hold, should make up a creature that doesn't seem to mass much more than a large dog. But there it is. Another cracker is squirming through the hatch, feathered antennae waving. Tiny pincers on each of its six long legs grip the floor, the walls, even the ceiling, as if gravity doesn't apply to it. A clawed tail, like a seventh appendage, wraps around a conduit pipe.

Most people don't realize it, but once caught off guard, these things are ridiculously easy to kill. A flick of the wrist, and the shiv buries itself in the head, right between where the eyes should be. If it had eyes, instead of those antennae.

_Crack. Like a gunshot. It's where they get their name from. The blackened body collapses to the deck, its shell split lengthwise down the middle. Smoke curls lazily._

"Like I said. Who the hell are you?"

The man lays his tool down delicately and stands up. "If I'm not mistaken," he says in a placid voice, "you have Lyrian plague. That's what you people call it, right?"

It's a deep shame. An anger that washes everything else away, except for the urge to kill.

"Hard to keep track of all the names," he continues. "The Rift. Bloodwarp. Szaal's Scourge-I like that one. Every species reacts differently to it. You're one of the boring ones, unfortunately. Not to mention stupid."

A chitinous leg drops to the floor, skitters itself towards the main body mass on the central table. Another leg follows. A single antenna uncurls, and time-

Stops.

"That's why your species is dying: stupidity. You keep trying to cure a _disease_."

"Jack, you gotta wake up."

She was alive. She was alive, and that thing hadn't gotten her, and somehow, she was _alive_. And the man sitting hunched next to her bunk-

How many times had she scanned crowds, unconsciously looking for him? How long since they had parted ways, since she had finally given up even hoping to see him again?

"Oh, my God, Riddick, how did you-"

Sudden, cold suspicion gripped her. _It_ was still after her. It would never stop, Rene had said. Right before he'd punched her, the bastard. "Are you... really... Riddick?"

"I've been holding your hand for the past three hours. Still feel like yourself?"

_I shouldn't touch him. The thought floated through her mind, but then she remembered that it didn't matter with him, any more than it mattered with Rene. Hadn't mattered, since they'd all been together on that planet. Maybe Carolyn and the rest had been the lucky ones, after all._

"Rene called it a-"

"Faylind. I know. I followed it."


	4. Chapter 4

They had never really spoken. Even the last time they had been together, on the skiff, with old Imam muttering his prayers, it had seemed to Jack like she was waiting for a right moment that never came.

Now it seemed like the right moment was patiently waiting for Jack, while she sat across the table from Riddick, fiddling with her food cube.

She cleared her throat awkwardly. "So. Thanks for... you know."

Riddick finished his own food cube in one bite. "For saving your life?" The hint of a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Gotta be careful there. Don't want that becoming a habit, or anything."

Jack laughed out loud. "Yeah," she said. And then the right moment seemed suddenly to have passed by, without her noticing. She flipped the food cube over and over in her fingers a moment longer, then took a small bite.

"Don't like my cooking?" Riddick asked sardonically. It broke the ice.

"No, it's just... I kinda miss real food."

"Well, hell, I could whip you up a five-course meal if you want."

Jack made a face. "Sorry. Don't think I could appreciate it very much anymore." She took another small bite, forcing herself to eat. "How long has it been for you? Since you could eat real food?"

"Hell. Long time. What about you?"

They were treading on dangerous ground now. Talking about something that polite people just didn't talk about. It occurred to Jack to wonder how many polite people there were left in the universe any more. "I don't know. Two years, maybe?"

Two years since her hair had gone crazy. Since her bones had started spontaneously fracturing, since her white blood cells had started eating the red ones. Since her body had slowly begun to forget how to cooperate with itself. Two years, living in constant pain. Doc Sharp's treatments had been the only way she'd stayed sane.

"Five years since the crash," Riddick grunted. "Seems about right. So what does this doctor of yours do for you?" Something in his tone made Jack think he was perfectly prepared to kill the good doctor, if Jack made the slightest complaint about him. It was strangely... comforting.

"He puts me in coldsleep for six months at a time. Healing time. Says it's like the body reboots itself. Interrupts the progress of... the symptoms."

"I want you to know, I never touched you," Riddick said quietly. "Not on that planet, not on the skiff afterwards. Didn't touch the holy man, either."

Jack nodded, but didn't look up at him. "Everyone you touched wound up dead anyway..." She stopped, her hand flying to her mouth. "Oh, God. I'm sorry." She heard his feet shifting beneath the table, and he shrugged.

"It's just the truth. Might as well have killed 'em all."

"But-Riddick, if you didn't touch me, then how come I've got it?"

"The way I figure it-and that faylind said something to me that makes me wonder about this-is that it's not just people that you can get the plague from. Some _places_ have it, too."

Riddick had _talked_ to it? That was like saying he'd stopped for a nice chat with a zombie, or something. "He-it-what did it _say_?"

"That the Lyrian plague isn't actually a disease."

She thought about that for a minute. "Dr. Sharp says something like that, too. Like, he says it's not a terrestrial sickness, that we can't expect it to behave like a terrestrial sickness. He says he thinks it's more like a... quantum field."

It was a real conversation, the most words she'd ever heard Riddick string together at once. She realized she kind of liked it. But now the lull they were settling into didn't look like it would let up anytime soon.

Jack nibbled slowly through the rest of the tasteless food cube. She almost jumped when Riddick finally spoke again.

"I think it'd be a good idea for me to drop you off with your doctor. I don't know if I'm safe to be around anymore."

It was such an incongruous statement-Richard B. Riddick, not sure he was safe to be around-that Jack almost missed the first part of that sentence. "Wait-what? Why? You're not-Riddick, I don't want you to leave me again!"

There. She'd said it. And now little demon thoughts started chasing themselves around in her head. What would he think? Would he think she was being childish? Or _hitting _on him? Or-

"I can't remember everything that happened on that merc ship, with the faylind."

Jack blinked. "Remember? Like what?"

"Like how my ship's drive was fucked up then, and works now. Like how I knew where that thing was going. Like what happened to the cracker it was working on."

"Did it... did it touch you?" Another incongruity, one that sent shivers down Jack's spine. Riddick saying he hadn't touched her on that planet. He was like a faylind; they both were, now. They could all kill with a touch.

"I don't know."

"What happened..." Jack licked her lips nervously. "After you got me, what happened to Rene?"

Riddick looked away. "I don't know. I'm sorry. I didn't stick around long enough to find out."


	5. Chapter 5

Riddick watched Jack's pale, pixie face fall. Slowly she rose, muttered a short "Good night," and shuffled off to the spare bunk.

As soon as she was out of the galley, Riddick dropped the charade of strength and health, staggering up to lean weakly over the sink as he heaved up the undigested fragments of the food cube. Almost twenty years he'd lived with this thing-one hell of a long time for a plague victim. Maybe Jack's doctor was onto something, maybe all his time in coldsleep-voluntary or not-had delayed his body's breaking down.

It looked like whatever-it-was that caused it, though, was catching up now. There was as much blood in the sink as vomit.

He'd started shaking, chills making his arms and legs weak. Fever. It was the last stages of Lyrian plague, when the body temperature would skyrocket, then plummet, in a continuous cycle as the victim steadily deteriorated. Everyone knew the course of the plague. Jack had to know the eventual fate in store for her, too, if no cure was found in time.

But he'd be fucked if he let her watch him die.

Somehow he made it back to his own quarters without folding completely. His joints were on fire with pain. Crawling into his bunk, he collapsed into a fetal ball, barely managing to pull the blanket over himself before losing consciousness.

_A chitinous leg drops to the floor, skitters itself towards the main body mass on the central table. Another leg follows. A single antenna uncurls, and time-_

_Stops._

_Riddick can barely hear the faylind speaking. He's focused instead on its hand, pale and blue-veined, deceptively human, reaching out to touch him. It's like a bad dream, and at some level he knows he is dreaming-but dreaming the truth of what happened. _

_The faylind's hand closes over Riddick's, and suddenly whatever spell he's been under is broken. He sends the alien flying across the room in a clatter of dissecting trays and implements, fury burning away fear. Somehow, whatever's wrong with this place-whatever has warped the great machine the ship is docked at-has, in a ridiculous quirk of fate, saved him from the faylind's killing touch. It won't have his body!_

_But now he knows. It did touch him, and it did do something to him. Because, while his dreaming self is busy, his lucid mind detachedly observes the cracker steadily reassembling itself. Body parts snap into place as though manipulated by invisible hands. _

_He watches himself stagger out of the lab to return to his ship, while the faylind recovers. He watches the cracker scuttle to its insectile feet-one moment it's on the table, the next on the floor, with no discernible movement in between. He watches its apparent indecision-exploratory antennae tasting in the direction of the faylind, then of Riddick._

_What is it that makes it follow him? What is it that makes it warp its way through the closed hatch to insinuate itself into Riddick's ship? Whatever the faylind did is inside Riddick now, drawing the cracker after like a dog on a leash._

_Panic seizes him. He used the excuse of not remembering to get Jack to agree to leave, so she wouldn't have to watch his final deterioration. He never expected his lie to be the truth._

_He has to wake up... has to warn Jack... _

Somewhere in the receiver vanes, the cracker stirred. It had woken only once before since secreting itself away, and then only to automatically repair the faulty drives. There had been no instructions given on that matter, and so it had reverted to default, its original, ancient purpose resurfacing.

Now it tasted the dreams the human's mind writhed within, tasted them and knew that the memories must be suppressed. But it was difficult. Already the human had unknowingly used the faylind's splintered touch to track him down and prevent his Passage into the girl. And now she carried its echo, too.

The cracker could taste the faylind's existence, barely, and only by following the link from the echoes. He had managed to Pass and was feeding now. But the faylind wanted both of these humans alive-alive, and ready to feed him once he reached Passage again.

The faylind's message was clear. Protect the two humans. For now.

Doc Sharp's office on Riinod station was in a shambles. Someone had put up one hell of a fight.

"What _happened_?" Jack breathed in horror.

Riddick shook his head. There was something he was missing here; something connected to that dream last night that had been so important-something that had slipped away just as he was waking up.

"_It _took him."

Riddick turned at the unfamiliar voice. An enormous black man leaned wearily against the office hatch. There was a cut on his forehead, still seeping blood. He was dressed as if it were the dead of planetary winter-from a hooded coat to full gloves-and wore a haunted look.

"Rene!" Jack threw herself into his arms. His gloved hands came about her in a tightly protective embrace.

"It's okay, momma. I gotcha."

There was a hasty round of introductions, Jack stumbling slightly as she gave Riddick's name as "Rick." Riddick shook hands with the man, asking, "Why the gloves?"

"Oh, man, I'm just still a little freaked. Thing tried to touch me. Don't want it tryin' that shit again."

"Well, you said it took the doctor. It's probably five systems away by now. Surprised you haven't gotten at least as far."

"Look, man, I had to come back for my girl!"

Riddick nodded absently. "Right." His joints were aching again, and his hands felt numb. _Not now_, he thought. _Christ, not now!_ Because there was something not quite right here. Almost like a buzzing in his head and chest, that had nothing to do with his condition.

Rene's eyes slipped from Riddick's for a split second, a momentary glance at the door into the lab. It was all Riddick needed.

The knife sprouted in Rene's chest as if it had grown there. His mouth formed a silent _No_, and for the split second it took for his body to hit the floor, Riddick wondered if he'd been mistaken.

"Oh my God, _Riddick_!"

"Trust me on this, Jack. Run." He pushed open the lab door. There was a corpse inside. The ID tag read "Sharp, Michael." The syringe in his neck said the rest. He'd taken his own life before the faylind could have it.

"What did you-what did you-Rene?"

"I said _run_, Jack!" he roared. But it was already too late.

"I am getting very, very angry," said the creature occupying Rene's body. It rose in one smooth motion, pulling the knife from its chest; then its huge, gloved hands came to rest solidly around Jack's neck. "Now," it said, "the girl and I are going to leave. I don't actually need her for another few days-another few days that she will _live_. Unless you do something truly stupid and try to stop me again."

All Riddick saw were Jack's panic-stricken, mottled green eyes. And then they were gone. His heart hammered irregularly in his chest; black spots sprang up in front of his eyes, and he tasted blood in his mouth. When the cracker appeared out of thin air and sent him flying away from the exit, he thought ruefully that the faylind didn't even need to go through that much trouble.

And then he heard music.


End file.
